


my arms in the sky

by lvsr



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Depressed Steve Rogers, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, steves space adventure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-09-06 07:54:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20288020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lvsr/pseuds/lvsr
Summary: “Alright, Buck,” Steve whispers against the still, warm air—a transient moment that feels like the sky is judging him. “If that’s what you want.”





	my arms in the sky

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [till i wake your ghost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/437007) by [lanyon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon). 

> TW for self-harm & suicidal thoughts.

> _ A man takes his sadness down to the river_
> 
> _and throws it into the river_
> 
> _but then he’s still left with the river. _
> 
> _A man takes his sadness and throws it away_
> 
> _but then he’s still left with his hands. _
> 
> _— Richard Siken, Boot Theory _

###### 1.

Steve is resting his elbows against the balcony railing and staring at the heady darkness of the sky. The lights of the city make it nearly impossible to see the stars. 

Sometimes, during wartime, Steve would look up at the stars and be stunned silent because it was the same sky he always used to look to at home. But Europe was miles away from Brooklyn, and the same sky doesn’t mean the same circumstances. 

Steve takes a sip from his bottle of whiskey. It feels warm going down his throat. His cellphone rests on the straw-stitched chair next to him. The screen is dark. 

Steve listens to the white noise of the city, for a moment, a moment that stretches out to infinity, so long that Steve can see the ends of the universe glaring at him. He presses his lips to the bottle again, taking a long swig. He tastes vanilla. He looks at the lip of the glass, seeing the cloudy imprint his mouth left. He sighs and rests his head in the palm of his hand. 

Sometimes Steve thinks about his pipe dream of becoming a renowned artist—when he was only six, before the war and before the sensation of a gun in his hand was familiar. Steve wanted to paint the entire sky. He remembers eating his neighbor’s baklava, sucking the honey off his fingers of one hand, and the other sketching stars on paper with half-eaten black and yellow crayons. Steve would drive his crayons to the nib coloring big circles and shading in the craters of his own imaginary world. 

Steve created a planet once and he called it _Starworld_ because whoever landed on it in their spaceships could touch a star with their fingers. No binoculars, no telescopes required to see them. Everyone could see the stars, touch them right from their house, spin their light around their fingers. The planet’s ground was bright blue, because it was Bucky’s favorite color, and Bucky and Ma and Steve lived on a big mansion at the top of a hill, with enough food to last them several lifetimes—most of which was chocolate bars and fruit. Steve and Bucky were always holding hands. Steve told Bucky that it was because they could always be safe. The drawings were bright and colorful and everything that Steve wished his life to be. 

Steve thinks about outer space and he thinks about the big mansion with candy bars and he thinks about holding Bucky’s hand and he goes back inside.

He finishes the bottle and feels nothing but a slight warmth in the bottom of his stomach. He takes his sketchbook out from the top drawer of his nightstand. 

He draws Starworld, and Steve and Bucky and Ma’s big mansion, and he draws the stars around the planet and he draws chocolate bars overflowing out of the windows and Bucky’s metal hand holding Steve’s flesh one and smiling, a flush on his cheeks.

The drawing is done in grayscale. 

###### 2.

Steve wakes up in the middle of the night, breathing heavy and sweating through his sheets. He notices several finger-shaped vertical tears along the middle of the cloth. That’s the third set in two weeks. It takes him a few minutes to come back to himself. He’s not drowning in the Arctic or the Potomac or any body of water. He’s sinking in his mattress, at home, in Brooklyn. 

Groaning, Steve pulls himself out of bed and walks himself to the kitchen—only to freeze abruptly, blood draining out of his face. Perched on his counter, is a folded sheet of paper that Steve knows had not been there before. 

He tries not to let his heart stutter. But he feels like smiling, anyway. Who else would leave him a note?

With shaking fingers, Steve pulls the paper off of the countertop, unfolding it twice to open it, revealing a short note written on a piece of wide-ruled paper, with four creases like even little rectangles. 

> _Rogers,_
> 
> _Stop looking for me. Stay away from me, please. I don’t have anything you want. I don't want to talk to you. I can’t be who you want. I’m not sure I want to anyways. If I wanted to talk to you I would have already. I don’t need you crying over a dead man’s face. I need to sort things out on my own. And live on my own. I’m sorry. _
> 
> _This is likely the last you’ll hear from me. _
> 
> _Goodbye. _

There is no signature. Steve recognizes the cursive anyway, as changed and scribbly as it might be. 

And Steve—

Steve feels hot tears streaking down his cheeks, but he has no right to cry. Bucky isn’t his. Bucky was never his. Bucky can stay away if he wants. It isn’t Steve’s decision. Steve isn’t allowed to want anymore—he lost that right when he failed Bucky. Steve almosts laughs. How quickly his night changed. 

He wants to tell Bucky that he doesn’t want him to be anyone, that he just wants him to come home. But maybe Steve isn’t Bucky’s home anymore, not the way he still is to Steve. Maybe his home died the moment he fell off the train, wind howling at his ears and jagged rock tearing at his flesh. He wants to tell Bucky that he doesn’t care if Bucky doesn’t stay, that he just wants one day, one hour, one second, to just say goodbye. (A nice sentiment, but it would be a lie and Steve knows it.)

What did he expect, really? A _Hey, Stevie, I missed you _ or _I’ll be ready to see you soon _ or even an I love you. Goes to show how stupid and selfish he really is. But God, Steve almost thinks, please let me be selfish this once. He doesn’t think it. Bucky is not his to be selfish about. 

His nails dig into his palms, leaving bloody crescents in their wake. 

“Alright, Buck,” Steve whispers against the still, warm air—a transient moment that feels like the sky is judging him. “If that’s what you want.”

Sometimes Steve wonders if he deserves this. 

* * *

Steve wakes up, blearily, dizzily, when he spies a figure sitting on his chair. He jolts up, his back hitting the headboard. 

“Hi, Stevie,” Bucky says, his hair long and lank, his metal arm gleaming. He looks worse for wear. But his smile—his smile is dazzling. 

“Bucky?” Steve asks, cautiously. 

“I missed you,” Bucky whispers, like he’s sharing a secret. 

Steve’s eyes are goddamn welling up again. “Me too. But—the note?”

“What note?” Bucky asks, eyebrows furrowed. He looks baffled. 

“The—the one on the counter? Where you said to stay away?”

“Aw, Stevie, I could never ask you to stay away,” Bucky says and smiles so bright, devastating, like he used to and maybe Steve imagined the note and maybe that should worry Steve but he doesn’t care. He loves Bucky.

He says what he has never dared to say before, “I miss you. I love you.” Quiet and meek. 

Bucky grins at him, pearlescent. “I love you too.”

Bucky steps out of his chair and leans towards Steve, pressing their mouths together softly, and Steve is helpless to do anything but surrender. 

He pulls Bucky closer, and Bucky straddles his waist. He kisses him and kisses him and Steve is breathless because he thought he’d never have this and Bucky’s smile is wicked as he bites his way down Steve’s neck. He kisses his skin until it bruises, bruises like Steve didn’t think it could. Steve buries his hand in Bucky’s longer hair, tanging it in his fingers. Bucky makes a low groaning noise, pleased. 

Bucky continues his journey downward and it feels so good and Steve doesn’t know how his luck turned so drastically—but it feels off—and oh. His luck was never going to be this good. The scene becomes distant and more distant still, like it’s diminishing from his viewpoint, evaporating in front of his eyes and Steve knows that he is dreaming. 

_Wake up_, he tells himself, _wake up before you destroy yourself. _

He thinks he’s already destroyed himself. 

His eyes shoot open, and he’s sweated through his sheets. He turns his head and he sees the crumpled note on his bedside and the remnants of faded marks on his palm and he puts his face in his hands and screams. 

###### 3.

Steve goes for coffee with Sam on Thursday morning, after his run. Steve orders a white chocolate mocha and endures Sam looking at him judgingly. 

“Where’s next?” Sam asks, at some point, blowing on his espresso. 

“Nowhere,” Steve says flatly. 

Sam raises his eyebrows. 

“He doesn’t want to see me. He gave me a note—said that if he wanted to see me he would’ve already.”

Steve doesn’t say that he read the note over and over even though he memorized it the first time. He doesn’t say that he bit his lip until it split. He doesn’t say that he had to keep reminding himself that it’s Bucky’s choice. 

Sam, apparently, sees some of this reflected in his face, because his softens and he says, “Cm’ere man.”

Steve gets up until they’re crammed together on the same booth. Sam wraps his arms around Steve, tight around his waist, and Steve wonders what he did to deserve Sam. Steve feels like crying. 

“Can we go home,” Steve whispers. 

“Of course,” Sam says, just as soft. 

Which is how Steve ends up leaning against Sam, watching the _Mission: Impossible _films. 

“I miss him,” Steve says, somewhere around the second movie. “I miss him so much it feels like it’s fucking choking me all the time and knowing he died was my fault fucking hurt but knowing he’s alive doesn’t make isn’t any fucking better because look what fucking happened to him. And sure, he doesn’t care about me anymore and I know it’s his choice to go and I should respect it and be happy that he’s putting himself together but fuck he’s still my home even if I’m not his anymore.”

Steve is actually out of breath. He almost laughs. Sam looks at him—he looks like he wants to object to some part of the statement. But he settles for an, “I’m so sorry, Steve.”

“Fuck,” Steve says, and the dam breaks. “I love him.”

“I know,” Sam replies. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Steve cries harder. 

Steve thinks he hears Sam mutter an _I’m gonna kick his ass_. He snorts quietly.

Steve thinks about Starworld again, and he thinks that maybe Bucky wouldn’t want to hold his hand this time around. 

###### 4.

He keeps radio silence for four days. He receives seventeen missed calls, fifty two missed texts, and thirteen voicemails. 

Steve’s blessed silence is interrupted by a knock at his door on Monday evening. For a second, Steve thinks he’ll open the door to a shock of brown hair and gleaming metal arm. 

It’s Natasha. He shouldn’t be disappointed. Steve bites into his apple. 

“The world doesn’t stop spinning just because he doesn’t want to be with you. You can’t stop either.” Is the first thing she says when he opens the door. 

“How long’ve you been waiting to tell me that,” Steve asks dryly. He takes a second bite, and then a third. 

Nat’s lip quirks upwards. “Two days.”

“Thought so.”

He can tell that she’s still waiting for a response so he says, “I know.”

She replies, “Do you?”

She’s got his number. “No, I don’t.”

She walks in and sits on his couch, legs crossing over each other. She points to the seat next to him. “Sit.”

He does. 

“Talk,” she says again, straightforward. 

“I’ve never lived without him—well, not like this.”

“What do you mean?” 

Steve exhales. “When he was dead—I mean. He was dead. That’s different. But, in Brooklyn—he never avoided me, never told me to stay away. I’ve never been so close to him but so far.”

“I’m sorry about him,” she starts, and Steve knows there’s a but. “But you understand why he did it?”

“More or less.”

Natasha folds her hands over her lap. “Who do you see him as?”

“Hm?”

“Like, who do you see him as? Bucky Barnes? The Soldier? Your best friend? Person who trained me?”

Steve knows about Natasha’s history with Bucky—beyond the shooting. She’d told him outright one day. He hadn’t been surprised. Steve knew Bucky was with the Russians. It wasn't hard to draw a conclusion. 

“Well,” Steve says. “He’s none, really.”

Nat looks at him.

“He’s a combination of all of those—he’s a new person. He’s not the person you or I remember him to be and that’s too much to expect of him anyway.”

Natasha nods, “Yeah.”

A moment and then,

“What was he like when he was training you?”

She blinks. “He was—quiet. Didn’t say much at all. Fierce as a fucking tiger though. Put up a shit ton of fight—even though he could beat all of us kids one-handed. And—kind, in a way. He’d patch up our injuries like it was important to him that they healed right.”

“Mm, yeah. He had sisters. Probably why. Some brotherly thing. I wouldn’t know.”

“How many sisters?”

“Three.” Steve smiles remembering them. 

“I miss him,” Steve says, almost too quiet to hear. “So fucking much.”

Nat leans on Steve’s shoulder. 

She asks, “Wanna order pizza?” 

Steve says, “Hell yeah.”

###### 5.

It has been an hour since Steve has gotten into the tub. The water has run cold, and Steve is teetering on the edge of a full-scale flashback but he can’t make himself move. He supposes he’ll just ride the goddamn flashback wave. 

There is a glass shard from his broken mirror in his right hand, and two dozen almost-healed cuts on his thigh. 

He wasn’t really thinking when he did it. He thinks he just wanted to feel something other than numb. It didn’t really work. It hardly hurt. 

Sometimes he wonders if he’ll ever get better. 

He misses his goddamn Ma. He wonders what she would say if she saw him now. 

###### 6.

Steve sees Bucky everywhere. 

How cruel must the universe be, to put him in arms reach, but just too far from the person he wants most?

Steve sometimes thinks that he must be going insane. 

###### 7.

Steve dreams of Brooklyn. 

Steve is six and Bucky is seven and Steve wakes up to Bucky pressing his lips against Steve’s temple and starts to get up and Steve says,

“Don’t go.”

So Bucky stays. And Steve watches as his own body grows in size, skinny at first, but then quickly gaining muscle mass, as Bucky’s hair gets longer, his face sallower, his arm metal, but he stays. He stays curled up against Steve, radiating his quiet warmth—Steve could stay here forever. 

He stays as his hair gets grayer and older and he gets skinnier, as his bones start to show. 

And it keeps going. Steve doesn’t age and Bucky keeps going. 

“Stop!” Steve yells to no one—his voice nonexistent to the sky. “Stop taking him away from me.”

And all of a sudden Steve is laying next to a skeleton, bare bones and teeth and blood in all their glory. Steve jumps back. 

The skeleton—Bucky looks at him. 

“_I stayed_,” he says, teeth clattering. “_Isn’t that what you wanted?_”

His bones turn into dust and brain matter spills onto his bed and Steve screams. 

He wakes up, sheets torn, gasping. Bucky isn’t next to him. Bucky is never going to be next to him again. Steve clutches his pillow against his sweat-drenched chest. He shakily reaches for the glass of water on his nightstand. 

Steve takes the note off his nightstand, clutching the words to his chest because this is all he has left. He’s a goddamn leech looking for something that isn’t there. 

Maybe Bucky was right. 

Maybe he is crying over a dead man. 

###### 8.

There are three smeared fingerprints on Steve’s coffee table that don’t belong to Steve. Steve’s heart races. 

Steve is confused. And also elated. Maybe Bucky changed his mind? Maybe it wasn’t Bucky at all. 

Steve looks at his bookcase, with its elegant mahogany furnishing and elaborate wooden swirls on the sides. He sees a note in the middle shelf. He stumbles over—and his heart drops a little bit when he notices that the paper is a cream color instead of a white, and there are no lines this time. 

And he recognizes the handwriting, messy and loopy. Natasha. The note reads, _Hi Steve. I didn’t want to wake you, but I left my jacket here and I was just stopping by to get it. _

Steve smiles, a little lopsided. Another bit of the tiny ball of hope remaining in his chest ebbs away. Steve’s hope has always been too large, a pulse fluttering out of his chest. Hope is the only thing he had, sometimes.

Steve refills his bowl of banana candy. 

###### 9.

There is blood on the Steve’s creaky beige couch. There’s a few likely reasons for this, the most prominent being a long laceration in Steve’s side, that Steve had haphazardly bandaged up and hidden during the debriefing post-mission. He doesn’t need to have anyone worry about him. He heals.

Carefully, he adjusts his gauze and lies down so that his ribs don’t hurt more than they already do.

It was a simple mission, really, just disabling a small HYDRA base off the coast of Alaska. He was just unlucky that a goon had managed to stick a knife in his side.

He takes a sip of his Gatorade, as his head pounds from dehydration. He thinks about Bucky. He’s always thinking about Bucky.

He thinks about Bucky holding his hand while he was delirious with fever, and Bucky braiding his sisters’ hair, and Bucky talking to stray cats like they could really understand him and—

Steve bites into his cheek so hard it starts to bleed. 

It feels like mercy when he finally passes out. 

###### 10.

Steve rips his drawing of Starworld into three pieces and throws the fragments into a shredder. (If only he could do that to himself.)

###### 11.

Steve is resting his elbows against the balcony railing and staring at the heady darkness of the sky. The lights of the city make it nearly impossible to see the stars. 

He thinks about his pipe dream of becoming a renowned artist—when he was only six, before the war and before he knew what it was like to have his heart torn from his chest and flung into space. He created a planet once and he called it Starworld because whoever landed on it in their spaceships could touch a star with their fingers. 

Steve listens to the white noise of the city, for a moment, a moment that stretches out to infinity, so long that Steve again becomes cognizant of the fact that there’s blood pouring from the insides of his wrist, spilling onto the railing and the wood platform. Steve is holding a gun in his right hand—he’s not even sure this is going to work. 

Steve used to think that if he looked far enough, waited long enough, he would get a happy ending. 

He’s stopped looking. He’s never going to find one.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from _ Planet of Love _ by Richard Siken
> 
> I kind of hate this but I figured I’d post it somewhere so here y’all go.


End file.
